Man rescued from Blacks Beach cliff - raw audio interview

James Towne, a 22-year-old Chula Vista man who slipped down a precarious part of Black’s Beach trails while out stargazing early this morning, was trapped for a couple of hours on a ledge before being reached by lifeguards who guided the uninjured man to the top of the trail and safety.

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“The call came in at 12:02 a.m.,” said Lee Swanson, San Diego Fire-Rescue department spokesman. “He fell off the walkway and was about 100 feet down the cliff and was stuck and could not go up.”

Swanson said a call for lifeguard assistance came in from the Torrey Pines Gliderport. The man was too low on the cliff to be rendered helicopter assistance, though a police helicopter was used to shine a light down on him in order to use a hoist lift.

Swanson said lifeguards used a rope rig to reach Towne at 1:20 a.m. They guided him up to the top of the cliff.

Towne and friends were visiting from Chula Vista to view the Perseid meteor shower, dusty debris left over from the orbit of comets, which the Earth passes through periodically. The event was at its peak Tuesday night, according to a NASA Web posting.

-- Steven Hyde contributed to this report.